As enterprises or other entities collect more and more electronic data during the course of their data processing operations, they are recognizing the importance of calculating the value of such data, i.e., performing data valuation. The value of data is often defined in terms of its semantic content and relevance of that content to the business. Calculating the value of data has a broad set of benefits.
By way of example, data valuation can be used to set a price for the sale of data. Further, data valuation can be used as part of an asset valuation exercise (e.g., a bankruptcy). Data valuation can also be used to prioritize the business value of different data sets and modify the information technology (IT) infrastructure investment based on that value (e.g., use disaster recovery for higher value data sets). Still further, data valuation can be used to charge users for access to the data and receive a fee in return.